News & Commentary

For the first time in 10 years, Marilyn Hackett was not subjected to listening to a Christian prayer while attending the Franklin town meeting. On Tuesday, the moderator of the meeting announced that due to the pending litigation against the town, the town's legal counsel had advised no prayer be said this year. The meeting then began as other town meetings in the state begin -- getting down to the town's business.

The Vermont Supreme Court has reversed a trial court decision barring a Windham County man from obtaining routine police records. The decision makes clear that police agencies are not exempt from the state's Access to Public Records Act and that they should follow a general standard of disclosing a record unless harm can be shown.

Vermont police are looking at the state Health Department's prescription drug database in a way they promised they never would -- as a law enforcement tool that they should be able to snoop through at will.

Think of the Web as one big vacuum, sucking up every bit of information possible from the sites you visit, the things you click, the little bit of bio you might provide (log-in name, birthday, income, hobbies, favorite movie, etc.) Then put all that information together, where it can be used to create a specific profile of you and others like you. It's the Holy Grail of advertising, targeting an ad message for small affinity groups or even one specific individual.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Vermont has sued a Vermont resort that refused to host a lesbian couple's wedding reception due to the owners' personal bias against lesbian and gay people. Vermont law prohibits denying access to public accommodations based on sexual orientation.

Open government legislation in Vermont has faced resistance from local government from the day the original public records bill was introduced 36 years ago. That experience is playing out again this year, as towns, cities, and school boards seek an exemption from a key provision in a public records reform bill passed by the House and now under consideration in the Senate.

That's how Vermont Public Radio leads with its story of the lawsuit brought by the ACLU-VT on behalf of Marilyn Hackett of Franklin. Hackett objects to the saying of a Christian prayer at the start of her town's annual meeting. She has tried over a period of a half dozen years to have the town stop the practice, but to no avail.

The ACLU of Vermont has sued the town of Franklin for including prayer in its town meeting. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Marilyn Hackett, a Franklin resident, alleges that the town and its moderator, Timothy Magnant, have violated Vermont's constitution and public accommodations act.

Vermont's public records law is perhaps the only state law that has no means of enforcement. None. If a public agency -- on the state, county, or local level -- breaks the law, it's up to citizens to go to court and enforce it. Yet even if citizens take the trouble to do that, and win, they still lose. They'll be out the cost of filing the complaint ($262.50) and attorney's fees if they hired an attorney to handle their case (hundreds to thousands of dollars).